


Third Law of Motion

by arcapelago (arcanewinter)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Humor, M/M, Sabotage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/pseuds/arcapelago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik returns to the mansion to find that the students don't exactly trust him, and they'll do whatever it takes to keep him and Charles apart even if it means more learning.  Charles is simply pleased the students are so keen on their studies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Law of Motion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Stella_Solaris for 2011 secretmutant.

Pacing the terrace of the mansion--now _Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters_ \--at two o'clock sharp, Erik lowered his watch to find not Charles, but a terrified young student. From the looks of her and her wide eyes, she had heard a few things about him, exaggerations or not, and Erik would have gladly reinforced them if it weren't for the folded note he could see trembling in her hand. His mood sank further. He already knew what it said, but he wanted it anyway.

The girl stared at him.

Though it was strained, he tried to smile. "Is that for me?"

She continued to stare.

Erik pursed his lips, but kept his voice light. "Are you going to give it to me?"

Her wide eyes grew even larger, as though the thought of getting any closer to him was on par with walking a tight rope. Over a pit of snakes. That breathed fire.

He sighed. He certainly had the time for this, but not the patience. " _Drop it_ ," he growled, starting for her so that she let go of the note and turned, her girlish shriek dotted with the sound of her shoes as she sprinted back inside. He caught the note before it could flutter to the ground.

 _Dearest Erik,_  
  
 _I am so deeply sorry to be sending this note in lieu of my person. The students in my Mutant Ethics class are apparently quite keen to receive their papers back today instead of next week. I have to say, though pleased, I am surprised that they have taken such an interest. As such, I must, with all my regret, beg you to allow me to reschedule our meeting until tonight. Class is over at 8pm. If you are amenable, meet me in the west hall._  
  
 _Sincerest apologies,_  
 _ ~~Professor Xav~~ Charles_ 


Resisting the urge to ball it up, Erik carefully refolded the note and pushed it into his pocket. By contrast, Erik was _not_ pleased, and _not_ surprised by their interest. He'd barely had a handful of minutes to speak to Charles since he'd returned two weeks ago, and by now he was fairly certain the students, at least the older ones, were doing that on purpose. This wasn't the first, or even the fifth, of their plans to be postponed or outright cancelled like this.

And what was Erik expecting? Things had changed drastically since the few months he'd spent at Charles' side, when they'd planned and plotted and struggled together for a somewhat united goal, still thrilling to the high of finding _someone_ to call an equal and a friend. Though they hadn't been entirely alone, at the time it was only a handful of others to dilute their company.

Now it was some forty or fifty mutants, all vying at whatever ages for Charles' attention, depending on him, trying to make him proud. Charles had become, as he had wished from the very start, their emotional and intellectual guide. And while Hank accepted the mantle of Professor McCoy for a few of the more scientific courses, and Alex and Sean handled much of the physical activity and general wrangling, Charles still bore almost all of the responsibility, academically and administratively. And it left little time for Erik.

He would have been sated with even that, if he'd been allowed it. Instead, Xavier's School for Entitled Brats seemed hell-bent on keeping the two of them apart. Despite the singular position Erik knew he held in Charles' affections, even now, he was but one mutant against half a centuria who didn't trust him further than they could throw him, and their mutations were generally not for throwing.

He'd just have to find something else to do. For six hours.

Before Erik could slink back inside he attracted another visitor, this one more familiar.

"When I heard the screaming," mused Raven, approaching over the terrace pavers, "I thought you might be the cause." Despite her words, she was smiling. She wore a simple dress that covered her in the important places, but other than that she was unaltered.

"She'll have much worse to be afraid of in the future," Erik answered, leaning back on the banister, arms folded. "She ought to get used to it. I've done her a favor."

"I take it you won't be founding the Magneto Daycare for Xavier's Gifted Youngsters, then?"

Erik smirked. "Depends. How do you think Charles feels about cages?"

Leaning back on the banister beside him, Raven scrunched her face disapprovingly. "I wouldn't ask him."

_I wouldn't even get the chance,_ thought Erik, but he didn't share his annoyance. It had weighed on Raven visibly to be on his side of the rift; rejoining Charles' side had obviously brightened her spirits. And while they had become reasonably close, Erik knew his company was often lacking. She liked it here better. There was no reason for him to bring her down, or remind her that this difficult decision to return hadn't paid off for him yet as it had for her. He had barely got a taste of what he was after.

"You're taking classes?" he asked, only now noticing the textbook in her hand.

"Charles talked me into it." She shook her head, eyes lifted, as though disappointed in her debating skills. "But I may as well be doing something. And he's suited to it. He really seems to enjoy what he's doing. It can be infectious."

"It's already a damned epidemic," Erik muttered, then waved it off when she didn't quite hear him. "I'm going inside," he announced, instead, clapping her on the knee to soften the abandonment. "Let me know if I can help." Somewhere in the mangled lines of his history, he'd had an exceptional education, if he separated it from its origins.

"Thanks," she called after him, "it's been a while."

* * * * *

Erik showed up in the west hall a little before eight o'clock. With the corridor empty and the classroom door ajar, he could hear Charles' lecture clearly. His style was immediately confident, with firm mastery of the material. But as Erik listened, it was also intimate, adapting easily to what must have been his students' reactions, perceptive in deciphering and predicting their questions.

Maybe Erik was wrong about their intentions. With a teacher like Charles, maybe they truly were inspired, maybe they really did seek his attention to better themselves through it.

He didn't entertain this possibility for long.

When class was dismissed, Alex was one of the first students to spill out into the hall, clearly in search of some other entertainment--until he saw Erik. When he did, he cleanly looped back around out of sight, and by the time the rest of the students filed past, he had already engaged Charles in some conversation that would clearly need to be continued in Charles' office.

Trying not to grit his teeth, Erik stood up, having half a mind to give up right now and try again another time. He was about to turn when Charles' glance stopped him.

"Actually, Alex," he was saying, "Erik's been waiting for me. It wouldn't be fair of me to make him wait longer."

Alex gave Erik only a few seconds of hope before he stepped toward him. "Well, maybe he could join us?" He glanced back at Charles with what must have been an expression of pure innocence before looking Erik in the eye as few others were willing. "I was just going to ask the professor more about his essay on Power Inequality and the Immorality of Force." He tugged it out of the book under his arm. "Have you read it?"

Erik could guess that somewhere in the second paragraph, after the thesis, there was some suggestion against strangling others.

He glanced to Charles, who looked uncomfortable.

"I'll wait," grated Erik, smiling to Alex to let him know it would be outside his door when he least expected it.

Charles' office was nearby. Erik followed at some distance, but he wasn't so far away he didn't notice Alex's smirk before he disappeared inside. He took another seat--thanking the Xavier family for their penchant for random chairs--to wait his turn.

* * *

Over an hour later, Erik had fixed the slipped gear in the nearby grandfather clock that didn't keep time so well as it kept him company. He also tightened the screws anchoring the large framed landscape on the wall, reset the nail in a creaking floorboard, and reattached the lost drawer pull in the console table further down the hall, all without leaving his seat.

Mere weeks ago, he could have spent the same amount of time setting down plans to coerce politicians, free mutant criminals, or generally terrorize the populace. Folding himself back into Charles' philosophies--like those in that essay--was not going to be easy, but even Erik could admit he hadn't responded emotionally to the events in Cuba in a manner others might call healthy. He could stand to scale it back a notch, and was willing to try.

Charles must have recognized that, or Erik would never have been allowed into the safe haven that had been created in his absence.

When the door finally opened, Erik paid no mind to whatever look Alex was giving him as he passed. Quite sincerely he only had eyes for Charles, whose attention was finally his. Charles nodded him inside, and Erik followed.

"I am so terribly sorry," Charles was saying, his smile weak as he glanced over his shoulder, wheeling himself in ahead of him. "I really didn't expect that to go on so long." He was already tired. It was plain on his face.

He turned his chair around near the sofa, where Erik sat, his knee almost at Charles'. It was as close as they could be to each other, now, without Erik on his knees or in Charles' lap.

"Alex has been showing a real interest in his studies lately," Charles went on. "Come to think of it, many of the students have. Going above and beyond." He shifted himself in his chair, his eyes momentarily more vibrant. "I think I'm finally learning how to reach them. How to encourage them to think critically."

_Or maybe they're learning how to play you,_ thought Erik, _how to protect you from me._ But the satisfaction in Charles' face, mingled with the exhaustion caused by months of tireless, selfless effort, made him hold his tongue. Luckily, Charles did not read thoughts without explicit permission. Otherwise, Erik would have just ruined his year, possibly his life, again.

"I heard a little of your lecture," answered Erik, instead. "To be honest, it's no wonder."

Charles smiled brightly at him, which explained why Erik managed to say it. "Do you think so? No, don't indulge me to answer that. Besides, we've hardly spoken to each other on account of it. I regret that more than I can say."

Erik regretted it, too, but he shook his head, lightly. He tried to cast off his gaze, but it was so hard to look away from Charles' face, now that he was given opportunity to look at it, to speak to him. He missed him more than he could handle. That much was obvious. "This is what you wanted from the start, isn't it?"

"Now, it is." Charles smiled. "With you here." He looked down, to Erik's hands in his lap, as though he might have taken one of them had he been able to reach them. "Erik, I can't tell you what it means to have you here. I can hardly believe this is real. It drives me to distraction."

Erik watched his face, carefully, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, closing nearly half the distance between them. "Charles," he began, swallowing his apprehension, "do you remember the last night we were here, before everything happened?"

Charles smiled gently, almost fondly. "Very clearly."

Erik paused, lips pressed together. "And do you remember, after the chess game--"

He was interrupted by the chime of a small clock on the wall, echoed by the lower tone of the grandfather clock in the hall. Though Charles' eyes didn't leave him, Erik noticed the way his hand went automatically to his pocket before he frowned.

He brought his hand back to his lap. "I'm sorry, go on," he urged. "Did you fix that clock?--No, never mind, go on."

But this wasn't a topic that could survive in two pieces. Erik sat up, pushing it aside yet again. "No, what is it?"

Charles frowned once more, wincing in acute apology. "I forgot my pill bottle fell out of my pocket during lecture, and I didn't want to try picking it up in front of the class. Would you excuse me, just one moment, while--"

Erik stood up. "I'll get it."

"No, I can--"

"I've hardly done anything all day."

Already on his way out of the office, Erik looked back at him to confirm Charles' concession. He looked tired, but grateful.

Pill bottles had the ability and apparently the motive to roll whichever way was least detectable. Even flat on the floor, it took Erik a few minutes to locate it. As he finally snatched it up, he resisted the urge to read the label. He'd kept informed enough of Charles' recovery to know what the pills must be for. He wondered, as he followed the hall back toward Charles' office, how many times he'd say he was sorry this time before Charles stopped him.

But Charles wouldn't have heard his apology. Erik found him asleep in his chair, his head resting against one of the padded wings.

Stopping at the doorway, Erik leaned against it, careful not to let the pills rattle as he lowered his hand. Charles' brow was smooth, untroubled, his mouth just slightly open, pink lips made red with teeth and toil.

_Do you remember, after our game--_

Their conversation that night had reached an impasse. What they'd ignored all summer, the painfully stark disagreement between them, had finally surfaced, rebounding them from each other, but accentuating the peril, the possibility that whatever happened the following day, it was likely to change things forever between them. Shaw, the Americans, the Russians, chance itself--any of these could have taken one or both their lives. They didn't know how it would play out, but returning the same way as they'd gone out was such a small probability that it wasn't considered.

As they'd bent to gather the pieces to clear the board, a game they never played to completion, their hesitance to straighten again dictated all that followed. Charles had let go of the bishop to move his hand to Erik's shoulder, his touch following Erik's jaw on the way. When Erik looked up, Charles had already leaned in, his intentions plain though it was Erik who finally closed that distance, charged with tension and held breath.

Charles had tasted like the whisky he'd been drinking. His grip on Erik's shoulder had tightened as he tipped his head, urging Erik not to flee, not to panic, but Erik had been too busy yearning for the next brush of Charles' tongue on his to do either of those things.

Erik knew his memory of it wasn't exact. He must have embellished it, added minutes to it, affixed too much meaning to it, for as often as he recalled it. He was rubbing off the edges of its clarity with use. But he had the heart of it right. Didn't he?

Stepping from the door, Erik finally approached. Charles was still breathing quietly between his parted lips. It would be so easy for Erik to bend down to feel them again, against his--to discover the answer, Yes or No, was it a misstep or a stepping stone.

Reaching down to him, he set his hand gently on Charles' shoulder. "Charles, wake up. You're supposed to take these."

Rousing with a lift of his brows, Charles labored to focus on him. When he did, he glanced sourly at the time. "Oh, Erik, I'm sorry." He took the pill bottle, shoving it into his pocket and pushing himself upright again. "Please, sit with me some more, I'm sure I have an hour left in me at least."

Erik smirked as he straightened, though it was lighter than his usual. Tonight was already lost; fighting for it wouldn't do either of them any good. "Another time. Go to bed, Charles."

Though Charles naturally protested, he apparently knew his limits, and gave in. He sighed. "At least walk with me to my room?"

Erik followed him out, locking the door for him so he didn't have to fumble with the keys, then kept alongside him down the long hall to its other end, clear in the east wing. Erik didn't have much chance to speak once they'd got far enough. The students were still mostly awake, and while they weren't directly inserting themselves between them, their heartfelt salutations and Good nights kept Charles fairly busy acknowledging them.

Just far enough behind not to be seen by him, Erik glared as much as he could manage, which was rather a lot. He received a few glares in return, but they eventually withered under the weight of his prowess. It was folly to challenge him.

At Charles' door, they shared a silence that couldn't be helped.

"Meet me for breakfast?" Charles offered, hopeful.

"Sure," answered Erik, though he already knew the result.

* * * * *

As though the future were a metal for him to divine, the next morning unfolded exactly as Erik knew it would. They did meet for breakfast, but for all of seven minutes, and seven minutes weren't nearly enough time to climb the conversational ladder high enough for the discussion of what Erik had been doing to Charles in his dreams last night.

It was possible that Sean, who had sat down at their table with a smoothness he never possessed otherwise, wouldn't have understood the class of jargon Erik was prepared to use, but it wasn't the best time to risk Charles' disapproval. Instead, he feigned tolerance long enough not to be the one at fault before he finally wished Charles an endurable day and excused himself.

He was out of the kitchen and on his way to the library to reminisce himself back to sleep, which could take all day, when Raven stopped him with a hand on his arm to make him turn. "Didn't you hear me?"

"You sounded like a student."

She rolled her eyes. "That was fast."

She nodded in the direction of a sitting room, keeping her voice low when he joined her in it. "They really won't leave you two alone."

He frowned that she had noticed, aware that he had no explanation he was willing to provide for why it should bother him. But if she didn't ask, he didn't have to tell. "They can't keep it up forever." Sooner or later, they'd want to stop learning things. Probably.

Raven didn't seem convinced. She would know, since she was part of their peer group, now. "They're pretty determined, from what I've heard. But I have an idea."

He studied her face skeptically. "What kind of idea?"

"The kind nobody ever regrets under any circumstances."

That seemed legitimate. "Then let's hear it."

* * * * *

Three days later presented the perfect opportunity when Charles' meeting with the contractor for the observatory he was planning for the rooftop ran late, thanks to a well-worded bribe. When Erik was sent to inform Charles' class of its unfortunate cancellation, Erik went to Raven instead.

"You're sure you can fool them?" he pressed.

She looked almost offended. After all, she'd completed many such tasks for him without fail. "I've heard his dissertation so many times I'm practically his understudy," she reasoned, though he could tell this assignment would take a great deal more skill than usual. "Be back in fifteen."

Erik nodded, then promptly returned to Charles and the contractor, just to be certain his contribution to the project funds was well spent.

"Were they disappointed?" asked Charles. The contractor was bungling with some blueprints he apparently hadn't sorted very well.

"Heartbroken," answered Erik. "But I trust they'll recover."

Charles took the news as though Erik had been sent to inform them their favorite parent were in the hospital, but he nodded, somberly. "I suppose one class doesn't hurt."

Erik nodded in agreement.

This one probably did, though.

* * * * *

By Raven's account, it went smoothly. She probably knew her brother better than anyone, and none of the students seemed to suspect that the assignment their professor was giving them in their American Literature class, though atrocious beyond measure, was actually coming from his sister. "They shouldn't be asking him about it, either," she had assured Erik. "I told them it was an automatic failure to ask for help. Test of resourcefulness, I said."

Which meant that all of the older students, whom Erik had hardly seen since, should have been busy toiling through the brute of a 50-page paper they were expected to write, explaining in detail how the narratives of the twenty-five most influential American novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would have gone differently if they'd taken place in Royal Prussia, c. 1720.

And according to plan, most of them were: all but Hank, who had taken to shadowing Erik for the past two days like a fairy tale creature sent to hover at the edge of his sight until Erik finally collapsed of remorse for his transgressions. He could hardly get near Charles without Hank's dedicated interference, let alone sit down with the illustrious professor one-on-one.

In a rare moment of freedom, Erik was about to make a break for it down the hall to Charles' young French class when Hank cleared his throat behind him. Erik whirled, pent-up unfulfilled dreaming emerging as something like seething rage.

"Don't you have a paper to write?" he rumbled.

Hank narrowed his eyes, arms folding over his broad chest. "I noticed Raven wasn't in class that day. I suspect that assignment isn't valid."

"Raven's absence will be a very weak excuse when that paper is due. She told me all about it." Erik gave his best rendition of sympathy. "I wonder how disappointed the professor will be when you of all his students neglected even to start it."

Hank smiled toothily, though he probably didn't mean to employ that modifier.

"That won't be an issue. I already finished it, just in case."

Erik stared. "No, you didn't."

"Graduated Harvard at fifteen, remember?"

Erik narrowed his eyes. Remarking on what the premature completion of the assignment said about Hank's social life wasn't going to turn this in Erik's favor, especially coming from Erik, whose idea of social success was a conversation that didn't end in a death threat.

Eyeing him, Erik sauntered over to the hall telephone, where there was a pen and pad of paper.

The note he scribbled would probably have gone differently if he weren't in a hurry, or if he weren't suffering from acutely unresolved urges, or if he weren't already unstable enough to have so recently sported a black and purple cape he frankly missed very much. Even so, he meant every word.

 _Dear Charles,_  
  
 _I would have preferred to express this in person, but circumstances have been uncooperative little demon-spawn and they are very much aware of it. I am gratified merely to return to friendship with you; however, in excess of that respectable station I propose that you let me do the following to you, order negotiable: . . ._ 


The list was luridly overdetailed, but Erik could not suffer being misunderstood, not at this juncture. Tearing off the note, he sharply creased its folds as he turned. Hank was watching him, as he probably had all along. Kinky.

Charles' class would be dismissing shortly. If Erik timed it right, afterwards he could pass Charles the note regardless of what Hank did to stop their conversing. He just had to get to him before Hank managed to foil it somehow.

Erik took a step down the hall. That wasn't a crime, was it?

But Hank did the same, keeping pace with him for the next few steps.

Unperturbed, Erik sped up his gait, noting out of the corner of his eye that Hank did the same.

There was a line between the rational and the irrational; crossing it was sometimes inevitable. Erik, having a somewhat lower threshold, was the first to break out into a full sprint. Hank reacted in kind, and it was swiftly apparent that Erik was no match for his bestial enhancements. Hank, as it turned out, was no match for the floorboard Erik wrenched up by its nail to trip him.

As Hank wiped out in front of him, Erik leapt over him, but was unsuccessful in avoiding Hank's claws around his ankle. His chest hit the next length of narrow rug hard enough to slide it nearly to the door of the classroom. As Erik twisted to catch Hank in mid-pounce, Charles went on with the French lesson, undisturbed. It was surprising how well fur muffled the sound of fisticuffs.

In the scuffle, Erik didn't realize the note had been thrown from him until he heard Charles remark on it.

" _Laissez-moi voir, Sylvia, s'il vous plait._ "

They both stopped fighting. With his head just barely past the door enough to see, Erik watched as Charles took the note from the girl, who was hardly over the age of eight, just like the rest of her classmates. Erik would have given himself away to warn him if Hank's most recent jab to his throat hadn't momentarily taken out his voice.

Charles' face flushed brilliantly as he read the note. Though he almost immediately refolded it with the affront when he realized what it was, he just as soon opened it again, read a few more lines, and closed it again. " _Mon Dieu._ "

Erik's gaze shifted to the class of waiting students, their eyes patiently curious, the definition of innocent.

Worming his way out from under Hank, Erik quickly withdrew down the hall, his face burning as though he'd been the one at the front of the class. He affixed the floorboard again as he passed it, lest anyone else suffer for it, then regretted it a few seconds later, as it might have come in handy keeping Charles from questioning him. The rumpled rug must have slowed him down, already, because Erik didn't hear Charles calling his name until he was nearly at the other side of the house. He ducked into the nearest room, which happened to be the library. This would be ironic.

He turned to face him, difficult as it was, when Charles wheeled in and pushed the door shut behind him. He still had the note in his hand.

"You were supposed to get that later," muttered Erik, before Charles could say anything. Erik had at least some courtesy in him.

"I imagine, yes," answered Charles, curtly. "From all the blue fur outside my classroom, not to mention the state of Hank himself, I can only guess how this managed to be delivered earlier than intended. Was that an all-out brawl I missed?"

Absently, Erik rubbed his throat. "Hank is very strong-willed."

Charles frowned lightly, then lifted the note. "That aside, for the moment, do you really mean these things?"

Erik couldn't tell which way this was going to go, but he met Charles' interrogating gaze and nodded.

Charles frowned again, unfolding the note to re-read it. Erik hadn't intended to be in his presence when each of those items went through his mind, and it was fairly mortifying. If Charles weren't between him and the door, he might have made a break for it, mowing down Hank on the way if necessary.

Charles cleared his throat, pointing something out about a third of the way down the list. "I admire your creativity with that one. And this one . . ." he moved his finger a little lower, lifting his brows, "well, I appreciate the accommodation. You have thought my current complications through."

Dare he to hope? Erik listened intently for the footsteps of Hank, or anyone else, of any age, but luckily for them all, it was silent outside the door. "Is that a Yes, then?"

Puffing out his cheeks, Charles gave the list another once-over, then folded it again and slipped it into his pocket. "On the average, yes." He smiled, almost shyly, and the bottom dropped out of Erik's stomach as Charles gestured him closer.

"Here, put your knee here," Charles advised, and Erik shifted to let Charles' hands place his knee between the arm of his chair and his leg, a place to steady himself. "Now lean down," he instructed, so simply, gripping the arms of his chair to push himself up taller, so that as Erik stooped, they were well enough aligned.

Erik bowed his head, drifting closer until he could feel Charles' warmth, and then, finally, the brush of his mouth on his, and the slow, almost timid press of his lips. He slipped his hands inside Charles' jacket to trace his fingertips over his sides, through the fabric of his shirt, and he felt Charles' intake of breath rush first past his own lips. He tipped his head to press closer, and this time it was Charles who seemed to wait on the stroke of his tongue.

So much was different from the last time they'd kissed in this room. Charles no longer tasted like whisky but more soberly like himself, and there was a wheelchair, not a chessboard, between them. But at least tomorrow didn't bear the same heaviness of dread; at least now there was more time; at least now they knew better how the pieces would fall. And Erik's had fallen right back here in Charles' hands.

Erik drew back to give Charles a chance to ease himself back down to sit, though he didn't move his knee from the chair. "I keep expecting some interruption," said Charles, glancing at the door, then back to Erik with an apologetic smile.

"I wouldn't count on it," assured Erik, though as soon as he'd said it he wished he hadn't.

Charles laughed lightly. "Why not?"

Sighing slowly, Erik grimaced. "Most of the older students are busy. Working on an assignment. Which you didn't give them."

Working out why they must have accepted it in the first place, Charles canted his head suspiciously. "Did you make them think it was from me?"

Stodgily staying where he was, Erik nodded.

"So that you could have more of my time to yourself?"

Again, Erik nodded. Jealousy, deceit, sabotage: he'd never become a role model at this rate.

But Charles started to laugh, in that hoarse, voiceless way that said he really meant it. "I can't say I'm angry. I should, but I can't." He smiled up at him when he'd caught his breath; it wasn't as happy as his laughter let on. "But it won't buy us much time, I'm afraid. As this school grows, I'm only going to get more busy. I don't know when we'll have time to see each other."

"We could get rid of the students," suggested Erik.

"Then we don't have a school."

"Then you understand perfectly."

Charles shook his head, nudging him punitively on the hip. "That is not an option."

As Erik begrudgingly receded, finally, standing on his own two feet, Charles' eyes narrowed in thought. "However . . ."

Erik wasn't sure he liked that tone. "What?"

"Well," Charles started, "I don't have to teach everything. I've done well enough with the Spanish and French, but I'm rubbish at German, for one thing. Perhaps you might take a few courses under your wing? Become a professor?" He sounded hopeful. Naively hopeful.

Erik frowned. It might help Charles, and him, in the long run, but dealing with all of those students, day in, day out? Reading their papers, assigning their grades, being responsible for their fate . . . ?

Erik blinked, his gaze settling unfocused on the door.

"No," recanted Charles, softly, chewing his lip as though embarrassed to have suggested it. "No, you're right. You'd never be happy as a professor. Forget I said it."

"On the contrary," Erik corrected him, his smile broad and dangerous: wistful. "Nothing would make me happier."

"Oh, no," realized Charles, but it was too late.

Professor Lehnsherr would have his revenge.


End file.
